BICENTENNIAL TIMELINE
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| 1794 | |
| January 13 | Kentucky and Vermont join union |
| January 16 | Death of English historian and scholar, author of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" |
| February | British Gov. of lower Canada promises Indians return of their lands in NW Territory if they will join in war with U.S. |
| February 4 | Abolition of slavery in the French colonies |
| March | Part 1 of "The Age of Reason" appears in London and Paris |
| March 14 | Eli Whitney patents cotton gin |
| March 22 | U.S. bans slave trade with foreign nations |
| April 19 | John Jay, Chief Justice of Supreme Court, appointed to negotiate commercial treaty with England |
| April | Execution of Danton and Desmoulins by guillotine in Paris |
| April - July | Toussaint Louverture turns on his Spanish allies in Haiti and joins the French |
| May 1 | First trade union (Federal Society of Journeyman Cordwainers) organized in Philadelphia |
| May | Connecticut Assembly votes to repeal Appropriation Act to commit funds from sale of western lands to support of clergy |
| May | Bill to abolish slavery after April 1, 1795 introduced in Connecticut Assembly; (rejected in October) |
| May 8 | The United States Post Office is established |
| June 5 | Congress passes Neutrality Act |
| June | 2000 warriors assemble in new British Fort Miami on the Maumee |
| Summer | Henry Wansey publishes a journal of an excursion to the US |
| June | Yellow Fever epidemic begins at New Haven, continues for two years |
| June 26 | Treaty with the Cherokee Nation |
| Late June | Anthony Wayne builds Fort Recovery on site of St. Clair's defeat |
| July 28 | French revolutionary, Maximilien Robespierre dies; marks end of the Terror in France |
| July 29 | Richard Allen establishes the first African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mother Bethel |
| July | Whiskey Rebellion breaks out among backwoods farmers in the Monongahela Valley of Western Pennsylvania |
| August | Jacques-Louis David, arrested just after Thermidor, taken to the House of Detention at the Hotel des Fermes; paints "Self-Portrait" and "View of the Luxembourg Gardens" |
| August 20 | Anthony Wayne defeats Western Indians at Battle of Fallen Timbers |
| September | Yellow Fever epidemic in Baltimore |
| September 13 | John Cleves Symmes receives patent for his purchase in Southern Ohio (including Cincinnati) |
| September 30 - October 19 | President Washington leads militia into Western PA |
| September 24 | Washington Proclamation suppresses Whiskey Rebellion |
| October 22 | Anthony Wayne officially opens Fort Wayne |
| November | Timothy Dwight preaches Thanksgiving sermon defending the Appropriations Act |
| November 11 | Treaty with the Seneca and Six Nations at Canandaigua |
| November 19 | Jay's Treaty provides for withdrawal of British forces from the Northwest Territory by June 1, 1796 |
| December | Timothy Pickering confers with Oneidas, Tuscaroras, Stockbridges to get land for veterans of the War of the Revolution |
| December |
Cheshire town meeting votes against the sale of the Western Reserve |
| English developers extend Mohawk Turnpike as far as Avon, New York | |
| 61 mile macadam Philadelphia-Lancaster Turnpike completed | |
| Canal constructed at S. Hadley Falls, MA | |
| David Austin edits "The Millennium, Elizabethtown," predicts transformation will occur in 1796 | |
| Thomas Jefferson tests his Moldboard plow | |
| John Dalton provides a scienitific description of color blindness | |
| Neutrality Act forbids U.S. citizens to serve in the military forces of foreign countries | |
| Thaddeus Kosciusko leads the unsuccessful, Uprising of 1794, against Russian and Prussians | |
| Claude Chappe, French Engineer, invents the semaphore optical telegraph, a device for communicting via visual signals | |
| "Elements of Geometry", by French Mathematician Adrien-Marie Legendre, publishes, becoming the standard geometry text throughout Europe and North America for 100 years | |
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First Bank of the United States is founded under Alexander Hamilton and is granted a 20-year charter |
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| Timothy Dwight writes the poem, "Greenfield Hill" | |
| Louis-Léopold Boilly paints "Triumph of Marat" | |
| Gilbert Stuart, an American, paints John Jay, Catherine Brass Yates | |
| Death of Robert Burns, Scottish Poet | |
| William Blake produces the "Songs of Experience" | |
| Gov. Carondelet builds a canal to drain the city of New Orleans and open a route to the sea |
| 1795 | |
| January | Yazoo land companies buy 35 million acres (most of Alabama and Mississippi) |
| March 3 | French settlers at Gallipolis receive a grant of land from Congress, but most refuse to move |
| March 9 | Napoleon marries Josephine de Beauharnais | April 7 | Metric System is adopted in France |
| May | Resolution authorizing sale of Western Reserve |
| June 5 | Committee appointed to sell Connecticut's Western lands convenes at Hartford |
| August | Connecticut's Western Reserve (minus the Firelands) goes up for sale in Hartford |
| August 3 | Treaty of Greeneville; Wayne + 12 Ohio tribes: U.S. boundary at Cuyahoga; Indians dependent nations |
| August 12 | John Livingston and associates agree to withdraw from bidding on Connecticut Reserve in return for right to bid on any excess land over 3,000,000 acres |
| September 2-8 | Winning bidders post $1,200,000 in bonds for the Western Reserve |
| September 5 | 58 investors adopt Articles of Association as Connecticut Land Company and join in a deed of trust |
| September 5 | U.S. agrees to tribute to the Barbary pirates, ransoms 115 seamen |
| October | Digging of the Middlesex Canal begins |
| October 14 | Sale of the Connecticut Western Reserve minus the Fireland is announced |
| October 29 | Capt. Ebenezer Dorr enters Monterey Bay; first to sail California Coast |
| November 15 | Suspension of diplomatic relations between U.S. and France due to Jay's treaty with Britain |
| December 7 | Adams and Jefferson are elected President and Vice President of United States |
| December 10 | Washington reorganizes cabinet to include only Federalists; Timothy Pickering becomes Secretary of State |
| December 17 | Israel Ludlow establishes Hamilton and lays out streets of Dayton, Ohio |
| First (wooden) railroad in U.S. - Boston, Beacon Hill | |
| Jeremiah Halsey of Preston contracts to complete Hartford Statehouse in return for New York Gore tract | |
| Asher Benjamin designs and supervises first curved staircase in Connecticut for Hartford Statehouse | |
| First insurance company in U.S. incorporated (Mutual Assurance of Norwich) | |
| Timothy Dwight leaves Greenfield Hill to become President of Yale | |
| Four turnpike companies incorporated in Connecticut; six authorized; eight ordered surveyed | |
| Joseph Bramah invents the world's first hydraulic press | |
| U.S. Naturalization Act makes five-year residency a requirement for U.S. citizenship. Members of the nobility who entered the U.S. are required to give up their titles | |
| Treaty of San Lorenzo between Spain and the U.S. establishes a Florida boundary and gives U.S. right of navigation on the Mississippi River | |
| American, Robert Fulton, patents the first power-shovel for digging canals | |
| The Netherlands, occupied by the French, reconstitutes as the Batavian Republic | |
| All of Poland divides among Russia, Prussia, and Austria in the Third Partition | |
| British conquers Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) from the Dutch | |
| Charles Hutton publishes "A Mathematical and Philosophical Dictionary" | |
| Haydn completes the 12 London symphonies | |
| Apsolum Jones appointed deacon and priest of African Methodist Episcopal Church | |
| 1796 | |
| January | Oliver Ellsworth of Windsor, CT appointed Chief Justice of Supreme Court |
| January | G.C. Cuvier delivers a paper distinguishing mammoths from elephants, beginning the science of Comparative Zoology |
| January 5 | Death of Gov. Samuel Huntington of Connecticut; first President of the Continental Congress |
| February | Pickering letter to Six Nations proposes Quaker plan to develop agriculture |
| February 6 | Anthony Wayne's triumphant return to Philadelphia |
| February 13 | New Georgia legislature invalidates Yazoo land sale by previous corrupt state legislature |
| February 17 | Kittera of PA proposes 5 mile grid for U.S. Military District |
| February 20 | Edward Savage advertises the Washington family as the main attraction at the Columbian Gallery, his private museum in Philadelphia |
| March 15 | Treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain endorsed by Senate; U.S. rights on the Mississippi, boundary of Florida established |
| April-May | Napoleon assumes command in Italy; defeats Austria |
| April 5 | Connecticut Land Company adopts five square mile grid for partition of Western Reserve |
| April 8 | April 8 William Hull purchases the right to the Excess lands from John Livingston for $50,000 |
| April 8 | Connecticut Land Company appoints Moses Cleaveland (one of their Directors) as general agent to supervise the survey |
| April 24 | Death of George Wyllys (86), ending 66 years as Secretary of State of Connecticut in which he never missed a legislative session |
| April 28 | Fisher Ames oratory sways House to support appropriation to carry out Jay'sTreaty |
| May - October | Connecticut Land Company survey (first season) of Western Reserve; five-mile township grid |
| May | Surveyors leave Connecticut for Western Reserve |
| May 5 | Augustus Porter at Albany, outfitting the survey |
| May 17 | Congress adopts five mile township grid for U.S. Military District survey |
| May 18 | Land Act of 1796 mandates survey of all public land in NW territory, sale for $2 per acre, six-mile township grid |
| May | First legislative session held in new Statehouse at Hartford |
| May 31 | |
| June 1 | Tennessee statehood (16th State) as a slave-holding state |
| June 20 | Oliver Phelps (at Canandaigua) writes to Moses Cleaveland advice on treating with the Iroquois chiefs |
| June 21 | Seth Pease visits Niagara Falls; Milton Holley camps on Grand Island; treaty begins |
| June 21-24 | Red Jacket, Joseph Brandt and other Seneca meet CLC surveyors in treaty at Buffalo Creek |
| June 22 | The surveyors assemble at Buffalo Creek to meet the Iroquois chiefs |
| June 23 | Connecticut Land Company treaty with Six Nations concludes |
| June 23 | Farmer's Brother, Red Jacket, Little Billy and Green Grasshopper dine with the Connecticut Land Company commissioners (Red Jacket lectures on religion) |
| June 26 | Death of David Rittenhouse |
| June 27 | Connecticut Surveyors leave Buffalo Creek |
| June 29 | Treaty with the Creek Nation |
| July 4 | Independence Day; Connecticut Surveyors discover Ellicott's line and "arrive at the confines of New Connecticut" |
| July 7 | Milton Holley, Augusts Porter, Seth Pease and five others head South about 5 rods West of the Pennsylvania line |
| July 10 | Moses Cleaveland begins exploration of the Lake Erie shore, looking for a harbor |
| July 10 | Oliver Phelps leaves Canandaigua for Suffield, writing a letter to Moses Cleaveland |
| July 11 | Americans occupy Detroit following withdrawal of British forces from their frontier posts under Jay's Treaty |
| July 22 | Moses Cleaveland arrives at Cuyahoga, site of city to bear his name |
| July 23 | Augustus Porter sets chestnut post to mark SW corner of the Reserve |
| August 5 | Moses Cleaveland writes Moses Cleaveland that he has still not made up his mind where to place the capitol city |
| August 20 | Chillicothe founded by Nathaniel Massie in Virginia Military District |
| September 16 | Milton Holley begins to lot the east part of "Cuyahoga town" (Cleveland) |
| September 19 | Washington's Farewell Address |
| September 30 | Moses Cleaveland agrees to sell a township (later Euclid) to the surveyors for $1 per acre |
| October | Bezaleel Wells and James Ross purchase public lands and found Steubenville at Fort Steuben |
| October 5 | Spain declares war on Britain |
| November 6 | Empress Catherine II "The Great" dies |
| November 30 | Courier founded at Norwich, continuing as Norwich Bulletin |
| December | French fleet is prevented from invading Ireland at Bantry Bay by storms |
| December 7 | John Adams (Federalist) wins presidency and Thomas Jefferson (Democratic-Republican) becomes vice-president in the nations third presidential election |
| December 15 | Death of Anthony Wayne at Presque Isle (Erie), PA |
| Amelia Simmons publishes "American Cookery" the first American cookbook | |
| Congressional grant underwrites first road across Ohio: Zane's Trace | |
| Incorporation of the Firelands | |
| Treatise on the Improvement of Canal Navigation, published by Robert Fulton in England | |
| Grove Street Cemetery established at New Haven (grid design) | |
| Randall scandal - Lower peninsula of Michigan; Randall charged with bribing public officials on behalf of fur traders | |
| "Auld Lang Syne" by Robert Burns published | |
| Aloys Senefelder begins experiments leading to the invention of Lithography | |
| William Smith, an English surveyer, first used fossils to map rocks by their stratographic order | |
| The first complete works of Shakespeare were published in the U.S | |
| The U.S. Congress authorizes the construction of Zane's Trace, a road from Wheeling (now in West Virgnia) to Limestone (now Maysville), Kentucky. It became one of the main routes traveled by westbound settlers | |
| Spain joined France in the war against Britain | |
| George Washington(Landsdowne potrait) by Gilbert Stuart | |
| "Zoonomia, or, The Laws of Organic Life", by Erasmus Darwin prefigures the theory of evolution before grandson, Charles Darwin, formulates his theory. | |
| English House of Commons nearly defeats abolition | |
| British troops retake slave islands from French |
| 1797 | |
| January 1 | Capital of New York moves from NYC to Albany |
| January 26, 27 | Connecticut Land Company meeting at Statehouse in Hartford |
| February 14 | British Admiral Horatio Nelson defeats Spanish fleet at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent |
| February 23 | Connecticut Land Company meeting at Statehouse in Hartford exonerates surveyors and authorizes second survey season |
| February 23 | Connecticut Land Company appropriates $1500 to cut and layout roads leading to the Western Reserve |
| March 29 | Treaty by Mohawks with the United States and New York State |
| March 4 | Inauguration of Adams and Jefferson |
| March 15 | King George III issues new copper pennies, the first mass-produced regular coins ever, and the first one-pound notes (paper money) are issued |
| April 3 | Seth Pease leaves Lyme,CT for Western Reserve |
| April 5 | Seth Pease arrives in Albany |
| April 22 | Connecticut surveyors start up Mohawk River in bateaux |
| April 24 | Connecticut surveyors pass the locks at Little Falls |
| May | Firelands Company meets (only time) at Hartford |
| May - October | Second season of Connecticut Land Company survey of Western Reserve |
| May 18 | Connecticut surveyors's boats carried over Niagara portage |
| May 26 | Connecticut Surveyors arrive at Conneaut |
| June | Capt. John Carnes carries first cargo of pepper from Sumatra, opening American spice trade |
| June 3 | Connecticut Surveyor David Eldridge drowns, attempting to cross Grand River |
| June 4 | Connecticut Surveyors layout first burying ground at Cleaveland; David Eld interred |
| June 5 | Ad for Joseph Steward's painting exhibit and Museum of Curiosities in Statehouse at Hartford. |
| June 24 | Connecticut Surveyors encounter the Ottowa Indian Pontiok and inquire about the Portage Path |
| June 26 | New Jersey inventor Charles Newbold gets a patent for his one-piece cast-iron plow ,but farmers fear it will poison the soil and refuse to use it |
| July | William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge plan the Lyrical Ballads |
| July 9 | British statesman, Edmund Burke ,dies |
| July 10 | Adams and Trumbull Counties established in Northwest Territory (future Ohio) |
| July 22 | Seth Pease finishes the South line of the Western Reserve |
| August | Lucas Sullivant lays out Franklinton (later Columbus) on west side of Scioto River |
| August 16 | Surveyor Moses Warren returns to camp after completing the last four tiers of southern towns in the Western Reserve |
| August 19 | Surveyor Moses Warren begins running roads from Cleaveland |
| August 28 | Joel Barlow negotiates Treaty with Tunis agreeing to higher tribute to Barbary pirates |
| September | Treaty at Big Tree (Geneseo) New York between Massachusetts and Seneca, reserving 10 tracts (three remain) |
| September | Malaria and Dysentery claim more lives of the Connecticut Surveyors |
| September 6 | Dr. Griffith's "Address to the Inhabitants of the City and Liberties of Philadelphia" |
| September 7 | The Constellation frigate of U.S. Navy launched |
| September 9 | Timothy Dwight addresses "On the Nature of Infidel Philosophy exhibited in Two Discourses" at Yale College |
| September 10 | Anglo-English feminst, Mary Wallstonecraft, dies |
| Fall |
British naval forces defeat Dutch |
| October 3 | Western Reserve survey completed Seth Pease starts back from the Cuyahoga |
| October 4 | American peace commission arrives in Paris; XYZ Affair follows, resulting in undeclared naval war. |
| October 12 | Connecticut Land Company sells Lorenzo Carter a lot in the City of Cleaveland at $25 an acre |
| October 17 | A Campo-Formio between France and Austria ends war on the continent |
| October 21 | U.S.S. Constitution launched at Boston |
| October 22 | First parachute jump from a balloon |
| October 27 | Napoleon terminates the war against Austria leaving France at war only with England |
| November 13 | Samuel Taylor Coleridge begins to write "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" |
| December 17 | Birth of Joseph Henry in Albany, NY |
| Joseph Ellicott begins survey of Holland Purchase lands in Western New York and Pennsylvania. | |
| The "Friendship" launched at Salem | |
| Land companies appeal to the Gen'l Assembly to create the Western Reserve as a county of Connecticut; they never do | |
| Connecticut Land Company rejects claims of heirs of Samuel Holden Parsons to Salt Springs tract | |
| Michikinikwa (Little Turtle) meets George Washington in Philadelphia | |
| American, Thompson designs the vaccum bottle | |
| Talleyrand becomes French Foreign Minister. France order seizure of all neutral ships carrying British goods | |
| British defeat Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent, Portugal | |
| Haydn composes the Emperor Quarter | |
| Olaudah Equiano, author of a widely published autobiography dies | |
| "A Charge Delivered to the African Lodge", at Menotomy, by Prince Hall | |
| A new map of North America appears in The American Gazetter published by Jedidiah Morse | |
| The first American Lutheran Seminary, Hartwick, was founded in New York City | |
| English surveyor David Thompson left the Hudson's Bay Company for the North West Company and began survey to satisfy the requirements of Jay's Treaty | |
| Haydn composes "The Creation" modeled after John Milton's "Paradise Lost" |
New York State history buffs will want to check out these comprehensive timelines:
Also check out a Cleveland Bicentennial Timeline.